I yelled to my crew. “ARMOR UP AND PREPARE TO BOARD THAT SHIP!”
My crewmates looked surprised by my order, but did not hesitate to run to the lifts that would take them to the ready room.
“Justice, if they detect our approach and bring their shields and weapons online destroy the ship if you have to. Do what is necessary to protect the Legacy.”
“Affirmative Commander, I will attempt to disable the star drives with rail gun fire if possible.”
Justice had our suit systems up and ready when we stepped into our armor. We were viewing our approach to the Scrun ship on our H.U.D. screens. There was no reaction to our presence as the ship filled the limits of the view screen in my helmet.
“Commander I have matched forward velocity with the target and have zero defensive emissions. I am targeting the rear shield emitters and the discharge nozzles on both star drives.”
“Light them up Justice!”
I felt the slight vibration of the large rail cannons on each side of the hangar door open fire. We watched as bright flashes walked over the rear of the spacecraft and created a huge debris field in its wake. A pale shimmer engulfed the forward part of the ship and then disappeared. Justice made a rapid descending turn that took us below the target and just above the cloud filled atmosphere of the planet.
“Commander, the targets forward shield array is active and their weapons systems are in target acquisition mode. The Legacy was swept multiple times by the Scrun scan systems. They are unable to detect the Legacy and have no knowledge of our presence.”
Our scan negation upgrades were working flawlessly. I was not sure of the Scrun’s capabilities but this was a very promising first test of our new equipment.
“Commander your assumption was correct the shuttles are being recalled. They have been ordered to defend the mother ship.”
“Justice, make sure the slave ship cannot leave. I don’t want them disappearing on us when we go to meet the shuttles.”
“Acknowledged Commander.”
Justice moved us to just below the rear of the Scrun ship. I saw a targeting dot appear on the bottom of the ship just below the mangled drive nozzles. He fired a three second burst from a single rail cannon that created a huge hole in the hull. An impressive amount of debris was jetting from the opening. The ships response to the additional wound was to fire volley after volley of missiles in all directions. Justice turned us towards the shuttles that were clawing their way out of the planets gravity well.
“Commander I am picking up several communications from stranded troops requesting pick up. Communications have also revealed they have not picked up any slaves yet.”
“That just breaks my heart Justice. Destroy the shuttles.”
“Acknowledged Commander.”
A red target box appeared around the three shuttles. They were just about out of the atmosphere and flying in a loose diamond formation. The H.U.D. in my helmet showed a close up of the large heavily armed shuttles. They were about half as big as the Legacy and had large missile pods under their stubby wings. I could see several weapons turrets mounted around the hulls. My H.U.D. blinked three times, and the shuttles were gone. It was like they were never there.
“Targets destroyed Commander.”
“Did the shuttles have their shields up when we hit them?”
“Affirmative Commander, ground troops are reporting the flashes in the upper atmosphere. They are getting no response from the mother ship.”
“Justice, move us into the upper atmosphere above the ground troops. We will jump from there. I want you to keep tabs on the mother ship until I call for a pick up.”
Justice acknowledged my order and nosed us over into the atmosphere. Atmospheric friction created a huge comet tail behind the Legacy as we streaked towards the target area. Justice abruptly slowed us to a stop and opened the hanger door. The crew and I jumped from a height of 120,000 feet. We locked our formation and accelerated through the sound barrier. The shock waves from the sonic disturbance echoed over the target area. The atmosphere was on the high side for oxygen but was breathable. The temperature was forty one degrees. It was a beautiful sunny day planet side. Justice picked out the Scrun by their weapon and suit emissions. I saw fifty one red triangles scattering into the edge of a forest that stretched to the horizon. There were two red triangles holed up with hundreds of yellow triangles encircling them. We braked hard with our gravity boosters from a height of two hundred feet. We could see the bodies of hundreds and hundreds of the local inhabitants scattered in huge swathes in front of crude mud covered mounds that must have been their homes. The inhabitants had dark hair that hung to the ground. They ran on all four appendages but would rear up on their hind ones and hurl rocks and makeshift spears. Their anger was focused toward a cave on the hillside in front of the angry mob. The four of us landed between the mob and the cave. My decision to shield the mob from any additional harm was rewarded with a shower of rocks and spears. Even the young were helping out by throwing small rocks, body parts and feces.
We turned our backs to the barrage and walked up to the cave entrance. The Scrun must have thought we were there to rescue them because they came out of the cave towards us. They were huge ten foot tall brutes with puffy battle suits and no head. There was a dark square visor on the chest area of the suits just below the long gangly arms. Their weapons were pointed at the ground in front of us. As one we lifted our arms and pointed our weapons at them. They threw down their weapons and held their long arms out in front of themselves. The large gloved three fingered hands turned upwards with the fingers splayed. We were being showered nonstop with everything the natives could throw. I could see the blown apart bodies of the young and old scattered at our feet. I was sick to my stomach. My crew was looking at me.
“Fire!”
The four explosive rounds blew the Scrun’s upper torsos across the cave opening, momentarily leaving their legs standing in place before they plopped over. The unholy barrage and the incessant cacophony from the natives abruptly ceased. The silence did little to calm my nausea. Seeing hundreds and hundreds of slaughtered innocents filled me with a rage I had never experienced before.
I turned to my crew. “Hunt the rest down, I want no prisoners.”
We boosted toward the tree line. I could see scattered knots of red triangles in my H.U.D. and now only blue triangles behind me. We split up and hit the concentrations of troops with low yield anti-matter rounds. A group of about twenty threw down their weapons and extended their hands spreading out their fingers. They marched out of the forest towards the village. I made a sweeping turn and increased my velocity. Rapidly losing altitude, I lined them up in my helmet display. I wanted to scream out in rage as I cut them all down with a non-stop stream of anti-personnel explosives. When I ceased fire, you could not tell their remains apart from those of the innocent natives. There was a smattering of ineffective return fire coming from the edge of the forest as we hunted down the remaining Scrun. The pristine tree line was now a smoldering mangle of shredded wood splinters and swimming pool size craters. We circled the area to make sure we had missed no one. I looked at the natives of Beta one as we flew low over the mud huts. They were reared up on their hind legs with their front ones extended up to us. The din of the single note howl was easily heard at three hundred feet.
“Justice, we are ready for pick up.”
“Affirmative Commander, ETA seven minutes.”
We were climbing straight up at maximum velocity. We were buffeted by our shock waves as we went supersonic. I saw the big blue diamond of the Legacy in my helmet display. Justice came sweeping down from the star filled background and locked onto us with the tow beam. We cut our gravity thrusters and glided into the hanger as the big doors closed behind us.
“I need a sit-rep Justice.”
“Commander I have been modulating the negation systems output to give the Scrun enough targeting data for their defensive missile batteries to lock and fire. Once th
ey launch I increase the negation output and make evasive maneuvers. The missile count stopped at two hundred. They may have depleted their supply of missiles. The only response to my targeting data is the blind fire of the point defense weapons. The Scrun ship’s orbit is decaying and in fifty one point two hours it will enter the upper atmosphere of the planet.”
29
My crewmates seemed anxious and ready to go. Tria looked me in the eye.
“Commander if we come up against a large number of troops we must disengage or we will be overwhelmed.”
I nodded my agreement to her, but inside I was hoping there was numerous Scrun still aboard the ship. I planned to kill them all for what they had done to the defenseless people down on the planet.
“Justice, take us back to the slave ship. Stay far enough out you can still scan the system in case there are more slavers close by.
“Roger Commander.”
Justice’s use of roger to acknowledge my order was a first for him and made me crack a small smile. He was trying to inject a small dose of levity into my hate induced stress level.
I went to the weapons locker and grabbed one of the Union hand held rail guns we had acquired from the research station. Justice had modified and miniaturized the weapons so they fired a much smaller projectile. They now fired sewing needle size slivers that were made from hull materials. A one second burst could accelerate one hundred and thirty of the projectiles to over fifty thousand feet per second. The downsized weapons had a coffee cup sized magazine. The magazines could hold nine thousand rounds. They were clipped on to the arms of our battle suits and did not interfere with the armor’s primary weapons. They were much less destructive to the inside of a spacecraft than the armor suit’s weapons. After seeing the puffy pressurized armored suits the Scrun wore, I thought it would be the perfect time to test the weapons. If they failed to get the job done, we could always transform the inside of the ship into a hollow sewer pipe. I pointed the weapon at the floor and made sure the weapon sight was synced to my H.U.D. the muzzle of the weapon rotated to mimic the movement of my targeting reticle.
I headed toward the open hangar door. The view of the planet was breath taking. The large green continental landmasses had no industrial contamination that was so common back on my home world. It was an unspoiled jungle paradise and the perfect picture of Earths distant past.
The grim silence of my crew left no doubt about what we would do when we boarded the Scrun ship. I leaned down and grabbed the hilt of the Tibor fighting knife secured to my lower right leg. I was satisfied it was firmly in place. Klutch designed it with Coonts’s help. They both assured me it would only release with a command from my implants. Part of my Oolaran combat training emphasized the old Earth adage, better to be safe than sorry. As I straighten back up, I bumped my head into Klutch’s helmet visor. The Tibor had inserted himself in my path and was giving me one of his horrific smiles.
“Pardon me Commander I thought you might accidentally stumble out into the void.” With that comment, his helmet blacked out. He turned his back to me and waited for me to give the signal to jump. Tria was to my right and Coonts just behind us.
“Let’s move out Klutch!” We followed Klutch out of the hangar and formed up into our tight diamond formation. Klutch led us up and over the nose of the Legacy as we increased velocity to maximum. I glanced up into my helmet but could only see Coonts just behind my right shoulder. There was no trace of the Legacy, I knew to be a couple thousand yards behind us. I could only see the big beautiful planet below us. The wrecked discharge nozzles of the Scrun ship loomed in front of us. The large jagged hole Justice had blown in the hull was full of floating debris, some of which was very large. We got a glimpse of three red triangles on some kind of machine. It looked like they were corralling some of the floating debris. We broke formation and spread out as we entered the large rend. It was easy finding cover because it was floating everywhere. Klutch was moving toward the machine and the three targets. Tria and Coonts went up above us to scout for more hostiles. Six more red triangles appeared in the direction Coonts had gone then four more appeared on Tria’s side. All targets appeared close to each other and were trying to make repairs to damaged equipment.
It looked like our cannon fire had breached a hold and progressed up into another deck level. It was hard to tell if there were hostiles in the dark hole above us. I slowly worked my way in that direction. I got a faint beep in my display indicating Klutch had hit me with a comms burst.
“All hostiles in this area accounted for Commander.”
It was quickly followed by the same report from Tria and Coonts. The stealth feature of our battle suits rendered us invisible to the Scrun and my crew was now in close quarters with the enemy combatants. I told them to hold until I saw what was in the hole above us.
Using small burps of my gravity thrusters, I plastered myself against the ceiling of the hold. I inched myself forward until I could see up into the hole. I froze at what I saw. To either side of the big hole was some kind of mounted weapons systems. There was two Scrun sitting at shielded consoles on each of the twin-barreled weapons. Just behind them sitting on various boxes and crates were six more targets holding stubby looking rifles with wickedly jagged bayonets fixed under the fat barrels. I slowly moved back away from the hole. This was not good. There could be any number of hostiles in the room above me. This looked like a baited ambush. If it was, there was probably more bad news hiding nearby. I needed time to think about the best way to neutralize the enemy advantage. My best source for that information was across the hold from me keeping tabs on the repair crews. The new threats were now displayed in my display so the team could see what was going on. I retreated to a dark corner of the hold behind a big piece of machinery. “Team, regroup on me.” We were spending a lot of time screwing around in enemy territory. I knew it was an unhealthy thing to be doing. It was no time to be indecisive but going on the offensive without knowing for sure what the opposition had waiting for us, could lead to disaster.
One by one, my crew rejoined me and we touched our helmets together in a rugby style huddle.
Klutch said what I was thinking. “Commander it is a trap, they are using the repair crews for bait.”
Tria thought we should try to bypass the ambush. “Commander we might find access at a different location. There is considerable damage around the destroyed drive nozzles. A quick reconnaissance of the area might reveal a better entry option.”
Coonts surprised us all. “Commander I could lead them outside.”
We all looked at Coonts. “I’m listening Coonts what have you got in mind?”
“Commander I was thinking if I was to move back to the breach in the hull and gave them a visible target reference, they would likely send an armed response to my incursion.”
The little Grawl was short in stature but long in guts. He was definitely turning into a badass. “Coonts your idea has merit and I have to admit, you got a set of brassy big ones for volunteering but we don’t know the capability of those mounted weapons or how much of an armed response they will send after you.”
The little Grawl just shrugged his shoulders. “Commander, if I have enough of a lead, I can lure the weapons platforms into open space and Justice can target them with the rail cannons.”
Tria liked what she was hearing and patched up the loopholes that were giving me doubts. “Commander, Coonts has an excellent plan we need to modify it a little to better our advantage. I propose we plant delayed anti-personnel charges close to the repair crews while Coonts moves back to the breach. We will take up positions around the hole to the upper decks. When Coonts is clear of the hull, he can hail Justice to bring the Legacy in close. We will then set off the charges killing the repair crews. Coonts can appear at the breach entrance and discharge a few munitions into the far end of the hold. This should trigger the ambush. Coonts can then retreat to the Legacy and take refuge in the hangar bay. The Scrun will not be aware of the Legacy until
it is too late. Justice can then engage all pursuing forces.”
We had spent way too much time doing nothing while the cowards in charge were probably up to something. “All right Coonts, Tria, we do it your way. Let’s go plant the charges.”
I took the cargo wranglers and Klutch and Tria took the others. The Scrun that were catching the floating crates with the large freight hauler were fixated on their jobs and did not have a clue I had just planted two high explosive charges just behind the operator’s seat. By the time Tria, Klutch and I took up positions on the ceiling, Coonts was ready.
We waited until the Scrun on the freight hauler had just secured another container and the three of them had secured themselves aboard the machine. I held up my hand in front of Klutch and Tria then counted down with my fingers. The explosives detonated with bright flashes of light that lit the entire hold. Shrapnel and other crap bounced off the walls all around us. Through the dizzying array of flying debris I could just make out Coonts hovering in the middle of the hull breach. What I thought would be a few rounds of munitions from Coonts, turned into a couple of twenty round burst. The explosive shells were hitting flying debris and detonating. Additional shredded projectiles were now hitting all of us with ever increasing regularity.
Scrun gun platforms dropped out of the hole in the deck right in front of us. The troops I had seen earlier were piled onto the back. The mounted gun platform had a faint yellowish glow around it that the flying junk careened off. I looked over to the breach and Coonts was still there. One of the mounted weapons opened fire and burned a hole clean through the debris field just missing Coonts. I raised my arm to fire at the gun crew but Tria pulled my arm down.
“Commander they are shielded. Their weapon’s targeting system will be confused by all the debris.”
First of my Kind Page 39